Saturday, May 29, 2010

The Laws and the Profit

Given that David Laws stood shoulder to shoulder with George the Progressively Osborne a few days ago and announced the bare beginnings of a programme of public sector wreckage which even the IMF finds a bit imprudent, the revelations about his expenses may perhaps best be termed ill-timed. Possibly this is why Laws has been talking so much about his sex life instead, and even wheeling out the likes of Jeremy Browne to tell the world what a splendid chap David Laws really is. "I think it should be possible to be in politics and serve your country and still maintain a private life at the same time," thundered Browne, apparently under the delusion that anyone but Laws and the occasional Christian bed-and-breakfast entrepreneur has a problem with Laws' private life. Laws, it transpires, is a paragon of ascetic frugality who has given up a career in banking to go into politics; in the estimation of Jeremy Browne this qualifies as a lifetime devoted to public service and any concern we may have about millionaires with their snouts in the trough is a symptom of a collective suicidal psychosis which damages the national interest. Laws is also "one of the most talented, brilliant politicians of his generation" which, in the generation of Daveybloke, Osborne, the Milibands and Ed Balls, is certainly saying a good deal.

Update Laws has now resigned, which is more than most of the snouts in the trough ever thought of doing.